Sagemcom signed to develop Dutch specified smart electric meters

In the Netherlands, distribution system operator Enexis has signed French smart solutions provider, Sagemcom for the provision of smart electric meters.According to a press statement, Sagemcom will develop and supply its ESMR5.0 smart electric meters in line with the country’s DSMR4.2 specifications, requesting adaption with the Long Term Evolution (LTE) communication model.

The ESRM5.O meters will be deployed under Enexis’ smart metering project beginning in Q4 2016 and is expected to be be complete in 2021.

[quote] The new solution, complements Enexis' existing base of smart electricity meters with GPRS, and will offer real time information on energy consumption in order to reduce energy usage and significantly decrease energy costs for customers.

Under the contract, Sagemcom will participle in the Fair meter concept, which will help Enexis to contribute to sustainability in the energy sector.

At a later stage, Sagemcom and Enexis said they will develop the ESRM5.0 smart meters for LTE Machine-Type Communications (LTE-MTC), which enhances radio coverage for low data rate applications while still providing all the performance, economic, and longevity advantages of LTE.

According to Rutger van der Leeuw, Director Customer and Market of Enexis: "With the ESMR5.0 project and by selecting LTE as our communication technology of choice, Enexis further enhances the long term availability and quality of its smart grid...”

Smart meters communication systems

The selection of Sagemcom to develop the LTE ESMRO smart electric meters follows company's announcement in December, 2015 that it secured certification of its G3-PLC smart meters communication processor from the G3-PLC Alliance.

Sagemcom said that its G3-PLC single and three phase products have passed Cenelec A G3-PLC technology according to ITU G.9903 specification confirming full operation of the communication processor.

The testing done in collaboration with French company Laboratoire des Applications Numeriques (LAN) included interoperability testing to verify compliance of the device’s physical layer with other referenced devices.

However, the development followed Sagemcoms’ own testing of the product with G3-PLC data concentrator (DC) and various smart meters brands which showed a time reduction in reading meters’ load profile and improvements of the connection rate.

Commenting on the development, Kaveh Razazian , CTO Energy and Telecom at Sagemcom, said: “Certified and interoperable G3-PLC products have fulfilled the utility needs for a solution that is standard-based and interoperable to protect their large investment to build fast, reliable and intelligent networks.”